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He looks impatient for the promised spears
Of the wild Hordes and TARTAR mountaineers;
They come not--while his fierce beleaguerers pour
Engines of havoc in, unknown before,[1]
And horrible as new;--javelins, that fly[2]
Enwreathed with smoky flames thro' the dark sky,
And red-hot globes that opening as they mount
Discharge as from a kindled Naphtha fount[3]
Showers of consuming fire o'er all below;
Looking as thro' the illumined night they go
Like those wild birds that by the Magians oft[4]
At festivals of fire were sent aloft
Into the air with blazing fagots tied
To their huge wings, scattering combustion wide.
- ↑ That they knew the secret of the Greek fire among the Mussulmans early in the eleventh century, appears from Dow's account of Mamood I. "When he at Moultan, finding that the country of the Jits was defended by great rivers, he ordered fifteen hundred boats to be built, each of which he armed with six iron spikes, projecting from their prows and sides, to prevent their being boarded by the enemy, who were very expert in that kind of war. When he had launched this fleet, he ordered twenty archers into each boat, and five others with fire-balls, to burn the craft of the Jits, and naphtha to set the whole river on fire."
- ↑ The Greek fire, which was occasionally lent by the emperors to their allies. "It was," says Gibbon, "either launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow, which had deeply imbibed the imflammable oil."
- ↑ See Hanway's Account of the Springs of Naphtha at Baku (which is called by Lieutenant Pottinger Joala Mookee, or, the Flaming Mouth), taking fire and running into the sea. Dr. Cooke, in his Journal, mentions some wells in Circassia, strongly impregnated with this inflammable oil, from which issues boiling water. "Though the weather," he adds, "was now very cold, the warmth of these wells of hot water produced near them the verdure and flowers of spring.'
- ↑ "At the great festival of fire, called the Sheb Seze, they used to set fire to large bunches of dry combustibles, fastened round wild beasts and birds, which being then let loose, the air and earth appeared one great illumination; and as these terrified creatures naturally fled to the woods for shelter, it is easy to conceive the conflagrations they produced."--Richardson's Dissertation.
